


Life Ain’t No Crystal Stair

by LittleMissPixieStix



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Death, F/M, Feels, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 22:51:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4076800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissPixieStix/pseuds/LittleMissPixieStix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Scout's mother dies, both Spy and Scout grieve.  After Scout's grief manifests itself in violence and desperation, Spy is asked to talk to the boy to help calm him down.  </p><p>But, as much as Scout hates the Frenchman, will he even listen?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Ain’t No Crystal Stair

**Author's Note:**

> Story inspired by an SFM picture by Shadowenza - http://shadowenzasfm.tumblr.com/post/96385290384
> 
> This story can be found on my tumblr here - http://littlemissfemscout.tumblr.com/post/116773253402/life-aint-no-crystal-stair

She was dead.

The message had been sent to both teams, that Scout’s mother had died, and the RED Spy and BLU Scout’s reactions couldn’t have been more different.

Spy doubled his smoking, which was a feat in itself, constantly taking a puff as if he could remake her out of the ashes.  He kept himself distant, keeping his feelings under guard.  Being a Spy had helped him figure out how to do that over the years.  

Some of his team mates thought of him as cold, but others knew.  He grieved in private, letting the mask fall when he was sure he was on his own

Scout, however, expressed his grief through destruction.  His room had long been trashed, magazines that he had read and loved, the only few he had, were torn to shreds, as if he hoped he could exchange the paper shreds to bring her back, if only for a moment.  His wall was filled with dents and gouges, the former made by a metal bat, the latter by the same bat once he had snapped it in two with his haphazard swings.  And once he had trashed his room, he moved on to other areas, either rooms, items, or himself.

The others tried to comfort the boy, tried to calm him down, but they didn’t understand, they didn’t know her.  

And now they never would.

Once the boy ran out of things to break, with the others making sure that he stayed out of their areas, he found something else to destroy; his relationships with his team mates.

Normal playful insults started to become more cutting, dark.  In only a few short days after the message came through, Scout had goaded the Soldier into killing him many times.  The others held their temper better, telling themselves that the boy was grieving.  Still, Scout got himself killed, or killed himself, repeatedly.  Was this because he didn’t have to think while going through respawn?  Because he didn’t have to feel anything for those few moments?

Every member of the team tried to talk with him, but every time he just clammed up.  Engineer, Medic, Heavy, Demoman, Sniper, Spy, and even Soldier tried to talk with him to help him through this, with some conversations going better than other.  Pyro didn’t try to talk with him, but rather tried to give the boy a hug every time they saw him, and left him a few drawings and a plate of cookies to try to cheer him up.  The drawings were kept, probably ripped up, but the cookies were placed back in front of Pyro’s door overnight, completely untouched.

Engineer said that Pyro could have the cookies after that, so that they didn’t go to waste.

Those were the saddest cookies that Pyro had ever eaten.

The grief didn’t affect the Scout’s on-field performance.  Rather, it just encouraged him to try to get the raging sadness out by killing someone; his bat use increased as it helped him to make these deaths hands-on.

So when the BLU Spy found the RED one after a fight and told the latter that they needed help with the boy, the RED was a bit surprised.  He was more surprised when the BLU asked him to come over and try talking to the boy, because the other Spy knew of his relationship with the boy’s mother.  

He was hesitant a first, but when the BLU promised to bring all of the pictures that he had taken of Spy and Scout’s mother together, to let the RED decide what to do with them, he agreed in a heartbeat.

Once he was standing behind the boy, the BLU team had let him in the base and up onto the roof to talk with him, he didn’t know what to say.  He had come in with a plan, all Spies tried to make one when they were going on a new mission, it only made sense to come with a plan.  

The minute he saw the BLU Scout’s back, he forgot everything he was going to say.  What did one say in this case?

He walked over quietly, taking a seat next to the boy.  The Scout didn’t pay attention to Spy’s sudden presence, it was either that he didn’t care to interact with him or that the boy didn’t realize that Spy had approached him.

“Fuck off.”

Ah, well then, perhaps he had.

“Don’ wanna talk,” He muttered angrily, glaring angrily at the sharp drop over the edge of the roof, “Tol’ ya’ thousan’ times, don’ wanna tal-”

He had looked up at the person, as if he hoped a glare could scare them off, and his brows furrowed further when he saw who it was.  

“You,” He wasn’t asking a question, his glare-accompanied words were filled with venom, “What do you want you want.”

“To talk,” Spy said, “But since you do not want that, zhan to just sit, I suppose.”

Scout stayed silent as the older man sat down.  Spy sat near the Scout, but not next to him.  Close enough to have a conversation, but not close enough that either of them could easily shove the other off.  It was a long drop down.

There was no speaking by either of them, just pure silence.  This carried on for a bit until Spy pulled out his case to get a cigarette, thanks to the awkward situation pulling at his frayed nerves.

“Smoke?” Spy offered the Scout, unsure if he’d take up the offer or not.

Scout’s first inclination was to say no when the cigarette was offered.  His mother had always told him that he should stay away from that stuff, that doing it would hurt his possible baseball career that she had always been encouraging him about, and his first thought was to say no to make her happy.

But thinking like that didn’t matter anymore.  

She was dead.

“Yeah,” Scout said darkly, reaching out for the cigarette.  It seemed to help Spy, so maybe it would help him too.  Hopefully more than stealing a bottle of Demoman’s scotch had done.  All that had done was make him feel sick and throw up, it didn’t do much to help with anything else.

Spy handed Scout the smoke, lighting it first before he passed it along.  He was probably breaking some sort of gentlemen’s code by doing that, but he got the feeling that Scout wouldn’t like him to move any closer to light it once it was handed over

He watched out of the corner of his eye as Scout looked confused as to how to properly use a cigarette.  Spy pretended not to notice the boy looking over at the Frenchman to copy him.  

The silence was now only broken by Scout’s hacking, as both parties stayed quiet.  Not even Scout could cough forever, though, and he soon figured out how to puff without feeling like he was going to die.  

He still wasn’t feeling better.

“Your mother…”

Spy had started talking, but he then cut himself off, hand moving to cover his mouth as he readjusted his cigarette.  The Scout hadn’t seemed to notice that he was talking though, and that somehow helped make the Spy want to continue.

“Your mother was one of zhe best women I know,” Spy said, “But she was the only one that I loved dearly.  I cannot imagine what zhis must feel like for you, Scout, but I imagine zhat you are hurting worse zhen I am.”

“Hell yeah, I am,” Scout growled, pausing to cough quietly, “What makes you think you even knew her?  What did you two do?  You fucked.  Congrats.  Treated her like she was a slut, I bet.”

“We did more zhan…fornicating, Scout.   Meeting her was an accident, a case of bad timing on her part,” Spy responded slowly, pausing for a moment, “I suppose which makes it a case of good timing on mine.”

Scout stayed silent, angry that this man dare talk about his mother.  Especially since he was one to have had sex with her, and leave said boy’s parentage dreadfully unclear.  Spy took the silence to mean that he could continue.

“Iris was- your mother was in my target’s house.  I eliminated him; she was in a different room, wearing only a robe and her heels, and walked in to find me over the dead man.  Most woman, save for a few, would have screamed, possibly fainted,” There was a small grin on his face now, ”But not your mother.  She grabbed the closest items, which I believe were a glass-encased candle, a pan, and her shoes, and threw them as hard as she could while swearing at me and yelling at me to leave before she called the cops.  Brave, wonderful woman.”

Spy glanced over at the BLU, small smile still present.

“…Not only did you get your mother’s eyes and smile, and I believe her temper, Scout, but you also got her throwing arm.  And her aim, because every item thrown met its mark; me.  I had quite a few bruises after that.”

Scout snorted, evidence that he was listening to Spy talk.  The only thing that made Spy talking bearable was that he had gotten hit because of it.

“We met later that month;  I had to lay low after a few more jobs, and we met at a grocery store.  It was a long line, and we talked about an assortment of things,” He a small smile curled onto his lips, “We must have hit things off very well, because after she was finished, she gave me her number, and invited me over for dinner the next night.  It was supposed to be roasted cauliflower…She burned it.  I never let her live zhat down…We talked, met a few times, I started to court her soon after that.”

Scout glanced up, with a look of surprise and anger in his eyes.

“You’re lying,” He growled, “There’s no way she would have liked a guy like you.  You musta’ done somethin’, I don’ know, threatened or…I don’t know…there’s no way that you two felt like that…she was just a one-night stand, right?  A one-time fuck to get crap off your mind.”

“You’re wrong, Scout,” The RED said calmly, blowing out a ring of smoke, “We talked and knew each other for close to a month before we engaged in any activity of zhat sort.  She proposed it because I was about to leave, and she said she’d regret just letting me go.  Zhat was our first time, but it certainly was not our last.

Spy paused to take a puff of his cigarette.

“Every time I was sent to the northern east US coast, I’d try to go and see her.  Sometimes it was succesful, sometimes it was not, but zhat’s when I knew zhat…the man who was supposed to have no emotion had fallen in love.  As wonderful a woman as she was, how could I not?”

Scout looked over at the Spy, now with confusion on his face.  Did Spy mean this?  Any of this?  Had he really loved his mom?

No.  No way.  He wouldn’t believe it.

Spy was lying. He had to be.

“I have been seeing her all of these years.  Zhe last time I saw her, she was still as beautiful as the first,” He said, “And she was always talking about you, Scout.  Whenever she did, her face would glow with pride, whether we were talking about you being in little league or you managing to pull your GPA up enough to stay on the high school baseball team.“

Scout tensed, wondering how much his mother had told the man.  How much did Spy know because of his mother, and how much did Spy find out on his own.

“I’ve seen you play baseball,” Spy mentioned casually, “A few times.  Arrived after the first inning, left before zhe last out.”

“ _What?”_

Scout couldn’t stay silent now, not that Spy had said that.

“No, you-  No way…,”

He was dumbfounded, the cigarette plummeting to the ground as it fell out from between his lips.

“Where?  When??”

“From since the main goal for the players was to spin around in circles and pick flowers in the field.  You were very young at the time, so I suppose playing wasn’t the first thing on your mind zhen,” Spy said, readjusting the cigarette with his hands, “I saw your last game as well, and I believe around one a year in between those.  You’re a very good player.”

Was Spy actually complimenting the Scout?  Was he being serious?

“Why’re even telling me this?” Scout finally asked, “Why are you even still talking?”

“Perhaps I was wishing to share some memories of your mother with you,” Spy said after a moment’s pause, “Perhaps I just wanted you to see zhat you are not grieving alone, Scout.”

“…What?”

I am not saying that I know your pain exactly, or zhat I am telling you your pain is not real,” Spy told him, “You have closed yourself off, refusing any help because you feel zhat zhe other would not understand, though zhey do try; I understand.”

”So, what?  You’re offerin’ me a shoulder ya’ cry on?” Scout sarcastically asked, “Thanks, but no thanks, ya’-”

“I haven’t seen you cry since you were very young.  Quite impressive, zhough also a bit damaging.  It would be rather stupid of me to offer you something like that,” Spy replied, “I’m offering you a place to talk, a place to remember, a place to grieve.  Or a silent presence, if zhat’s what you wish.  I’m offering you a companion who you might feel can understand your pain.”

”Shut up!” Scout yelled, finally snapping, “You keep saying you understand.  _You don’t_.  You _can’t_.  She wasn’t your mother, she wasn’t your family, she wasn’t your only parent.  She wasn’t your reason for being here, she wasn’t the only person who cared.  She was everything to me, and now she’s…she’s…”

She was dead.

“Pain is a part of living; if you ever dare to love, zhan you will feel pain, it’s inevitable,” Spy said, flicking some ashes away,  “But one of life’s gifts is to merely live, and if we are not living for those we love, zhan who are we even living for?”

“But she’s…I can’t…She’s gone.”

“All the more reason to live.  She wanted nothing but for you to succeed, to be happy.  If you do not find a reason to live for yourself, zhan you should find a reason to live, to smile, for her; it is what she would have wanted for you.”

Scout was tearing up now, the drops threatening to fall. He hadn’t cried once since he heard the news, hadn’t cried for years, but now that streak might be gone.  

Everything hurt.

Then the tears finally spilled over, and started to stream down his face.  His nose started to drip.  Scout hated crying, because it was also so messy.  Messy and sad and painful. Crying meant that something was wrong, something that he couldn’t handle.  

He hadn’t cried in so long so, once he started, it was as if someone had turned on a faucet.  The tears flowed, and his nose ran, and he was soon sobbing.  His hands moved up, holding on to his head as he tried to calm himself down.

“I m-miss her so  _so_ much and now I’m never gonna see her again,” He sobbed, “I love her, loved her, and I shoulda’ told her that more.  Should’a told her that every freakin’ day…She knew, didn’t she?  Fuckin’…shit.”

Spy watched for a moment, and then slowly moved closer, cautiously draping an arm over the boy’s shoulders.

“She knew,” Spy told him quietly, “Even if you didn’t use those words exactly, she knew.  Every time you smiled at her, she knew.  Every time you sent her a letter from here, she knew.  She knew, Scout, I promise you zhat she knew.”

Scout responded by crying for a few more minutes, and then he finally started to calm down.  Spy had started to tear up himself, but only for a very brief moment.  This was not his place to mourn right now; he would have his time later.  This was Scout’s time right now.

“The funeral will be in a week or so, and I will be travelling up to Boston to attend,” Spy told him, “If you do not wish me visible, zhan I will remain in the back.  But I will be attending, you cannot stop me me from doing zhat.  Would you care to be each other’s travel companions on zhe way?”

“…Fine,” Scout agreed reluctantly, thinking it was best to have someone who would make sure that he’d come back to Teufort with him, “…Sure.”

“Zhank you,” Spy said, “…Would you like another cigarette?”

“Uh, nah,” Scout answered, “One was enough…uh, for right now.”

His mother had never wanted him to smoke.  Maybe now wasn’t the time to continue with it, especially since he had barely even started.

It’s what she would have wanted after all.  It would make her happy.

Maybe even his letting Spy attend the funeral would make her happy too, even if Scout didn’t want him too.

The woman that the two men had loved differently was gone. They could mourn and cry because of the loss, possibly discovering different family ties as they grieved.

She was dead.

But that didn’t mean that the two of them couldn’t live for her and remember the times that they had lived with this wonderful woman while she had been alive.


End file.
